Thirst
by Taintless
Summary: On a search for the Horcruxes, Hermione is sent to Ireland with Draco. But after being kidnapped by Death Eaters and saved by Malfoy himself, things are not what they used be between them. New chappie: Bit racy, ye have been warned!
1. Chapter 1

Granger had changed.

There was no doubt about it. He didn't know what they'd done to her but she had definitely changed. He hadn't seen her in two months, but he saw her now.

She sat across from him. Her legs were crossed and she was leaning back in her chair. She was silent; her only response to her friends' questions were curt nods or weak attempts at smiles. There was a long scar down her face, staring at the middle of right her eyebrow and spreading down (she was lucky her eye hadn't been badly damaged) to her cheek.

She was wearing simple black robes. Her hair was as bushy as ever, and thrown up. Her face was as pale as death. Draco could see her worried friends' expressions. None of them could understand. Nobody knew what could possible have happened to her. She never talked of it. He didn't blame her.

McGonagall stood in front of them. She looked so tired. Her eyes sought out Granger's – for reassurance, maybe? – but Granger barely looked up at her old mentor.

McGonagall was not the leader Dumbledore had been. She didn't have the presence or the power. "Right," she began, "well…we've had possible leads in search for the Horcruxes." Harry had told her about them during Granger's capture. "One in Ireland, one in India, one in America, and one in Albania. Since…er….all the Order are caught up trying to keep the peace here, we were wondering whether you lot would check them out."

They were in Dumbledore's old office. It was the end of what should have been their seventh year. Most hadn't returned. Potter, Granger and Weasley had begun searching for the Horcruxes but then Death Eaters had captured Granger and the other two had returned to Hogwarts. Meanwhile, Draco had been serving the Dark Lord, too scared after Dumbledore's death to leave but not strong enough to stay. He had learned that night, the night of Dumbledore's death, that he didn't really like killing after all.

Ginny Weasley raised a hand, "Er, Professor? Isn't there someone else who could…?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Weasley. Anyway, the order has discussed it between us and we decide you are all more than capable to handle yourselves. We do not want you to go and get the Horcruxes only go and.see if magical activity has taken place around the suspected area. Minimal risk, really." It hit Draco then what the order were really doing. They were getting the young ones in danger out of the country. Perhaps they knew something was coming, or perhaps they were just getting desperate?

Draco knew that Potter also had figured this out by the sceptical look on his face.

"There's eight of us," Potter said now.

Draco looked around. Potter, the two Weasleys, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Lavender Brown, Granger and himself. Eight. Amazing, Potter could count after all.

"Two for each place?" Ginny asked, frowning slightly. Draco could see she had inherited the Weasley's great intelligence.

"Who's going to want to go with _him_?" Weasley snarled, gesturing over at Draco.

"I've told you," Harry said, through gritted teeth. "Despite everything, Malfoy's on our side now. I've accepted him. You know what he _did_." Harry looked obviously at Hermione, who didn't look as if she was listening to their conversation.

"I don't care what he did. He was a Death Eater, for Merlin's sake!"

"And he's not anymore," Harry replied, his voice raising.

"Potter," Draco interrupted now coldly, "I don't need you to stand up for me. I couldn't give a damn about Weasley's opinion, and I assure you I would take as much pleasure going to a different country with him as he would me."

"I'll let you pick who you want to go with. Do I have your consent to go on this mission?" McGonagall said, trying to regain control over the situation.

"Oh yes," Lovegood responded dreamily, "I'd rather like go on a holiday."

"I'm in," Neville said. "My Grandmother will be pleased."

"Yeah," Ron said sulkily, arms folded.

"Obviously," Harry said with half a grin.

Lavender looked troubled. "I…um….suppose. I'll have to talk to my mum and dad first."

"I will," the Weasley girl piped in.

Everyone looked at Granger. "Professor," Weasley began, "do you really think Hermione should-?"

"She's a able witch, Weasley, and well able to decide for herself. Miss Granger?"

"Yes," Granger said, frowning slightly.

"And Mr Malfoy?"

All Draco saw were those brown eyes looking up at last. They met his and he could see the questions shooting out at him like sparks. _Why did you do it?_

"I'm up for it," he said, eyes still on hers.

"And your pairings?" McGonagall asked.

"I want Ginny to go with me," Potter said, catching her hand in his and smiling.

"I'd like to go with Neville," Luna said vaguely. Longbottom looked both shocked and horrified.

Draco realised there was the high chance of him being left with Lavender Brown. He honestly could not think of anything less painful at that moment.

"I'll go with Malfoy," Granger suddenly said.

They all looked shocked. "Are you sure?" Potter said, while Weasley hissed, "can you really trust him, Hermione?"

"He saved my life," she replied to both of them shortly.

With the flooding relief that the threat of Lavender Brown trying to read his tea leaves for however long he was gone for now thoroughly distinguished, a new confusion set over him about whether he should be more worried about this changed Granger.

And as he sat on the ferry beside her on his way to Ireland, he was still no more surer or confident.

* * *

_A new story. This was just a prologue. It'll get better - this is just the start. Hermione has some issues to work through first. Rating is high just to be safe - there'll be dark themes, and one grown-up scene. _


	2. Chapter 2

_The dripping was driving her mad. She shivered but it was only her body reacting to the cold, she herself was much too numb to care about such a minimal thing as temperature. Her mind was somewhere else, reliving memories that were so awful and horrifying that she knew she was teetering on the edge of her sanity, staring down into the abyss of dark madness._

_But she could blame the dripping for now. Drip Drip Drip. It never stopped. Just one leak of water somewhere in one of the cells, dripping away….forever….she just wanted to die already._

_She was starving to death. At first they'd offered her food, trying to gather information, and keep her alive in case she might be useful. They didn't take long in figuring out that she would never help the Dark Side, she was as stubborn as she was clever, and that the side of the Light knew better than to risk any more men trying to save her. The sad fact was that she was expendable._

_She didn't really care anymore. Her parents were dead. She'd watched her father die. She'd held him in her arms as he'd bled slowly to death, felt his body grow cold and lifeless…they'd stared at each other in disbelief as he died, neither completely believing it. They didn't talk, he only struggled to hold on fruitlessly and she only weeping silently and painfully. Her mother's dead body was beside them, flopped untidily on the floor in a grotesque manner, so dead and gone that Hermione hardly even recognised it and certainly couldn't look at it. When the last breath had left her dad's body, her world had seemed to grow dark and cold. Endless days seemed to stretch out in front of her. Days without her family. She'd never felt so alone in her life._

_She heard the crunch of footsteps outside her door now. Heard the little intake of breath. She waited, but said nothing. Draco Malfoy. He would walk on eventually._

_He'd only come into her cell once. She had expected him to be sneering, smug and delighted with his success over her – he'd won, hadn't he? Instead all she'd seen were two pools of grey weakness and regret._

_"I'm sorry, Granger," he'd said. And it wasn't because he was in love with her, or that he'd suddenly reverted to the Light Side. He was sorry because he had experienced loss as she had and knew how much it hurt. And petty rivalries seemed to pale in comparison to it._

_Draco had held her in his arms as she'd wept and wept for hours._

_There was nobody else down here now. The Dark side had won, hadn't they? Soon, perhaps, they'd remember that she was down here. They'd dress her up, perhaps, and sell her off as some trophy to one of the loyal Death Eaters. Or maybe they'd just leave her starve._

_For now, it was just her and Draco._

_And they were both prisoners, really, and both very very alone._

* * *

I know this is short, there'll be more added soon, this is just to get me writing again!


	3. Chapter 3

_"Please…Malfoy…please…don't! Oh God, Malfoy, please don't! P-P-please…"_

He couldn't stop staring at her. She sat across from him on the boat to Ireland, eyes shut, sleeping. Even in her sleep, though, there was no sign of peace there. He wondered how often he was in her nightmares…wondered how much she really remembered of the tortures he had helped put her through.

She'd never mentioned them to him, or anybody else as far as he knew. She had never told Potter or Weasley how active Draco had been in her tortures…or the different variety of tortures she'd endured before finally being freed…

I saved her, he argued in his head. But he had stalled, he could have saved her weeks of the torture but he didn't. Draco Malfoy was a coward. He knew it. She knew it too – and although he'd never seen any resentment in her eyes towards him, the feeling of her eyes on him made him feel like the lowest of the low.

_I'm sorry, he thought, but it wasn't like he could stop. Granger didn't deserve this, but the Death Eaters would never see that. She was a Mudblood and that was all that mattered to them. They wanted her to be in as much pain as possible, and every Death Eater had to take part…Draco was a Death Eater now, the Dark Mark on his arm told him this, and he had a duty to fulfil…This was who he was now. This was who he would always be. He'd always wanted to be a Death Eater and there was no going back now…_

Granger let out a small whimper in her sleep and a deep frown creased her forehead. He wanted to stir her from her nightmares, but they wouldn't just end with sleep. There was no point.

_And yet, despite all the pain Hermione must have suffered since her capture three weeks ago, the sight of Draco, her fellow classmate, staring down at her bruised naked body, ready for his turn, seemed to reawaken her and cause her to start screaming again…she hadn't screamed in so long…_

Why did Granger want to come to Ireland with him? It didn't make any sense. How could she even be around him without being sick? The thought of being around her for so long made him feel ill himself. It was only with her that he really remembered the last year and the full extent of horribleness it had dealt. It hurt him to be with her as well…

Hermione awoke as the ship reached land. She sat up, shook her head slightly and then her eyes met his.

"We're here," he said.

She nodded. "Where are we meeting Seamus?"

Seamus Finnegan was to be their own Irish guide for their stay. "He should be waiting for us. He's driving now. He said Tramore isn't too far from here."

They departed the boat together, neither saying another word. True to his word, Seamus stood waiting for them, leaning against a shabby looking black Ford Fiesta. Seamus greeted them cheerfully; a greeting that Draco returned with a curt civil nod and Hermione offered her typical weak smile. This didn't seem to discourage Seamus, who appeared to be in a great mood. He seemed in his natural element in his native country.

Seamus spent the whole trip pointing things out eagerly and chattering relentlessly. Draco started moodily out the window in the back while Hermione, in the passenger seat, seemed to listen distantly and make vague comments in response to Seamus' odd questions.

Draco sat up as they reached Tramore. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected, but it definitely wasn't this. He'd never seen a town so damn ordinary before. The whole town was just one big hill, with a church towering over it and lots of houses. The only significant thing Draco saw in the town was the long three mile golden beach and the shabby but impressive Amusement Park that overlooked the beach, thus taking from the beach's natural beauty.

"The name Tramore means, in Irish, big Beach. It's fairly busy in the summer with the tourists but now that its September most of them have gone home, which leaves only the locals."

"Why would Voldemort stash one of his Horcruxes here?" Hermione asked.

There was no response except a shrug from Seamus. Nobody knew why Voldemort did anything.

"Where are you guys staying?" Seamus asked.

"Pebble Beach, it's called," Draco replied. "It's like a little village of holiday houses. Very cheap. Should be fairly private now that all the tourists have gone home. Where are you staying?"

"My aunt lives down here, I'm staying with her. Here's the number to her house." Seamus parked, rather crookedly, once they reached Pebble Beach. It wasn't the kind of grandeur Draco had grown up in, but it was suitable. With any luck, he and Hermione wouldn't have to stay here for too long.

Seamus helped Hermione carry in her bags as Draco struggled with his own. He'd brought quite a lot more than her.

"So what's the plan now?"

"McGonagall said she'd send us an owl on Sunday Morning. Tomorrow morning," Hermione replied. "So, I guess we just wait for that. I might head to bed, actually. I'm quite tired."

"I have a better idea…" Seamus said, and his eyes seemed to glint with the kind of cheeky madness the legends told of leprechauns having.

* * *

Hermione wasn't quite sure why she'd agreed to this. She'd had a shower and was now staring at herself in the mirror. Maybe it was because she knew there was no point in going asleep. It would only bring the nightmares upon her…she was so sick and tired of the nightmares… 

Or maybe it was because she was turning eighteen, the legal age to drink in Ireland, on Tuesday and she was in a different country than her best friends and she'd never celebrated a birthday without her parents alive before…

Or maybe she just didn't give a shit anymore what she did. Because, at the end of the day, she wasn't really sure any of it mattered anymore at all…

* * *

Draco wasn't quite sure why he'd agreed to this. But a part of him felt inexplicitly glad he had agreed to this when he saw Hermione leave her room to meet them. He'd never seen her done up before. She was wearing jeans and a simple modest black top, and her hair was wet and curly. He'd seen Hermione at her worst…_her arms and legs torn with scratches, her eyes swollen, her clothes mere rags that covered very little of her hurting scrawny body, her hair a wild bush around her face, matted with her own blood_…and he'd seen her in her frumpy school uniform, eagerly answering questions and bossing everybody around…but he'd never seen her done up and looking nice. 

He felt an odd shiver go through him.

"Ready?" Seamus said excitedly, and Draco saw that Seamus had never seen Hermione look like this either. Hermione smiled and nodded.

"Where to?" she asked him.

"There's only one bar that everybody goes to in Tramore!" Seamus said eagerly. "It's called The Baldy Man."

An intriguing name, Draco scoffed silently. They walked about five minutes up the road to a bar that wasn't exactly impressive but which seemed to be alive with people and music. They were all asked for ID entering the pub, which explained the swarm of underage girls at the door who seemed to be pleading to enter. Draco, Seamus and Hermione all laughed at them, not completely maliciously with a slight sense of smugness.

The music was extremely loud and so Hermione, Draco and Seamus had to shout to each other in order to be heard.

"Let's get a drink!" Seamus yelled.

Draco waited for Hermione to refuse wistfully, and found himself surprised when she took Seamus hand eagerly and let him bring her to the bar.

* * *

The nightclub wasn't that big, but there was sure a lot of people squeezed together. The loud dance music vibrated through the ground, making Hermione feel like she was part of a massive heartbeat. Bodies brushed against her sides as she stood there and the smell of sweat, smoke, and alcohol was overwhelming. Strange lights swung around in the darkness and Hermione felt like she had stepped into another world, away from the pain and suffering that had surrounded her for so long.

* * *

Her head felt like it was spinning. The world was full of flashing lights, blurred faces and deep vibrations from the music.

"What's the name of this drink again?" she asked the guy beside her. Aaron had been very generous in buying her drinks all night. She held up the shot glass, which still had electric blue traces in it. It was the most artificial looking and smelling drink she'd ever come across in her life and, although it had tasted bad the first two times, her third and fourth ones hadn't seemed to taste of anything at all. Her tongue felt slightly numb.

"It's called Aftershock," Seamus said. "Perhaps that should be your last one, eh?"

Hermione had forgotten Seamus and Draco were still here. Aaron and her had been having a very deep conversation, of which she had very little recollection of now, but it had seemed important at the time, life-changing stuff even.

But how could she stop drinking the strange shot now? She hadn't felt this…free…in such a long time.

She turned her back on the two wizards and said determinedly to Aaron, "How about we have one more of those and then we go dancing?"

Aaron was only too happy to oblige.

* * *

Draco stormed down to the beach. He had taken his eyes off Hermione for two minutes to buy another drink and when he'd looked back, she had vanished. Disappeared. 

It was only after interrogating a few of Aaron's drunken friends that he'd learned Hermione and Aaron had gone to the beach.

Draco was raging. How dare she just go off like that…

What was GRANGER doing?

He spotted them almost immediately. Anger bursting through him fuelled by the alcohol in his blood, he'd stormed over, grabbed Aaron and pulled him off of Hermione.

"Hey Man-" Aaron started.

Draco punched him. He wasn't sure why. He had no right to. But he needed to punch Aaron's face, which was smeared with a smudge of Hermione's lip-gloss.

"Draco Malfoy!" Hermione pushed herself of the ground, readjusting her clothing in the process, and faced him squarely. "What are you doing?"

"What am I doing!" Draco shouted. "What are you doing out here? What have you been doing with this-" He gestured heatedly at Aaron, who was rubbing his bleeding noise, "jerk!"

Aaron made a movement to sit up, but Draco had quickly whipped out his wand and was holding it to Aaron's forehead.

"Granger, tell your friend to move along quickly. Now. Or else…"

"Get out of here, Aaron," Hermione said, her dark flaring eyes still on Draco.

Aaron did as he was told, leaving both Draco and Hermione alone on the beach, which seemed so vast and empty as if they were the only two people in the world. Moonlight spilled down on them and the sound of the gentle waves and their heavy breathing was the only thing that filled the air for a few moments as they both tried to gather themselves.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked him then, and her voice was low and shaky.

"What the hell is wrong with you, that's the question! Out here, on your own, with some strange guy you don't even know…and don't tell me you weren't doing anything because I saw you with my own two eyes!"

She slapped him. With the shock he dropped his wand where it landed soundlessly on the sand.

"I can do whatever I want, Draco Malfoy. It's not as if this – any of this – means anything anyway."

"So you were just going to come down to the beach with some strange guy and…?" he ranted.

"In case you don't remember," she hissed, "I'm not a virgin anymore. You and your boys took care of that one."

_"Please…Malfoy…please…don't! Oh God, Malfoy, please don't! P-P-please…" He had no choice but to swoop down on her. His hands touched her cool injured skin and a disgusted shiver echoed through his body as he saw her flinch in pain and vulnerability…_

"It changed you," he said. He wasn't shouting anymore, but talking flatly and honestly. The tide had been coming in all along and he felt dampness through his shoes.

_She cried as he took her, and he felt her trembling from under him…I'm sorry, he screamed in his head as he stared down into her eyes…_

"I feel…nothing…" she admitted with what seemed like a great tiredness. "I haven't felt anything in so long…" She looked up at him with dark eyes swollen with tears. Suddenly Draco was aware by how close they physically were and how they were breathing to the same beat. His heart was beating quickly…he coudln't help it...he looked down at her lips...she looked so beautiful, with the moon shining down on her and the darkness all around her...

And yet it was she that kissed him first. Her legs seemed to collapse and she fell, dragging him down with her. They didn't break the kiss, even as their knees clashed with the cold water. And then they were rolling around in the deep dark ocean, kissing and kissing and kissing…and it felt like it was never going to end…. And it was just the two of them in the world…and Hermione felt like she'd come alive again, her whole body was on fire, she'd never felt this way before…and Draco had never felt so close and intimate to someone before…her whole body was open to him…kissing and kissing and kissing…kissing her everywhere…the moonlight still spilling down on them, the waves washing over them, and they were saturated and cold and none of it mattered at all….kissing and kissing and kissing….

* * *

_What did ya think? Please review!_


	4. Chapter 4

"You're like nobody I've ever met before," he breathed in her ear, lying on top if her, pupils wide with passion, lips raw and sensitive. He felt like his whole body was tingling from her touch.

"You've come through so much and yet you can…can still look at me, after all that I've done to you, that I did to you."

She opened her eyes to look at him and –

"_No…Malfoy! P-please, don't! Not you! Draco…please!" _

"_Shut her up, Draco," One of the voices sneered from the back and Draco backhanded her and became rougher in his movements. They never took their eyes off of each other._

_And she could see the desperation in his eyes. The desperation... and the pity…and the never ending sadness._

_It had been so long since she had felt she'd been acknowledged as a human. And even though he was doing these horrible things to her, she knew he didn't want to, knew he got no pleasure in doing so, knew they were both trapped in this diabolical, horrendous show…_

"I knew you were different, is all. You weren't like them." She felt the dire in her build up and whispered huskily, "You weren't evil." Then she kissed him again, their bodies became closer still, and there was no more time for talk.


End file.
